The Taipei City Government yesterday unveiled more than 30 pieces of panda merchandise that have been themed around the six-month-old cub who has stolen the nation’s heart.
In an attempt to satisfy growing panda fever, the products are expected to create NT$500 million (US$16 million) in new business, officials said.
EasyCards, baby strollers, red envelopes, T-shirts and stickers are just some of the products that are to be available after Yuan Zai officially meets with the public for the first time on Monday.
Photo: Chen Wei-tsu, Taipei Times
Department of Economic Development Deputy Commissioner Lin Wa-fu (林萬福) said private businesses from many fields had expressed an interest since applications to supply official Yuan Zai products opened last month.
“Yuan Zai is the mascot for Taipei, and many panda fans want the city government to provide Yuan Zai products,” he said.
“We hope the authorized products will create a win-win situation for local business and the public,” Lin added.
When Yuan Zai makes her first public appearance at the Taipei Zoo on Monday, she will be placed in the same enclosure as her mother, Yuan Yuan (圓圓), while her father, Tuan Tuan (團團), is to be in a separate enclosure.
Taipei’s shelter factories — which provide employment opportunities for people with disabilities under the Department of Labor Affairs — have partnered with the zoo to produce a special Lunar New Year holiday gift set featuring the panda designs.
Department Commissioner Chen Yeh-hsin (陳業鑫) said the gift sets, such as cakes or hand-made soaps, are high quality and reasonably priced at between NT$300 and NT$500.
The commissioner urged the public to purchase the products to support workers with disabilities.
FLU SEASON: Twenty-six severe cases were reported from Tuesday last week to Monday, including a seven-year-old girl diagnosed with influenza-associated encephalopathy Nearly 140,000 people sought medical assistance for diarrhea last week, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) said on Tuesday. From April 7 to Saturday last week, 139,848 people sought medical help for diarrhea-related illness, a 15.7 percent increase from last week’s 120,868 reports, CDC Epidemic Intelligence Center Deputy Director Lee Chia-lin (李佳琳) said. The number of people who reported diarrhea-related illness last week was the fourth highest in the same time period over the past decade, Lee said. Over the past four weeks, 203 mass illness cases had been reported, nearly four times higher than the 54 cases documented in the same period
A group of Taiwanese-American and Tibetan-American students at Harvard University on Saturday disrupted Chinese Ambassador to the US Xie Feng’s (謝鋒) speech at the school, accusing him of being responsible for numerous human rights violations. Four students — two Taiwanese Americans and two from Tibet — held up banners inside a conference hall where Xie was delivering a speech at the opening ceremony of the Harvard Kennedy School China Conference 2024. In a video clip provided by the Coalition of Students Resisting the CCP (Chinese Communist Party), Taiwanese-American Cosette Wu (吳亭樺) and Tibetan-American Tsering Yangchen are seen holding banners that together read:
UNAWARE: Many people sit for long hours every day and eat unhealthy foods, putting them at greater risk of developing one of the ‘three highs,’ an expert said More than 30 percent of adults aged 40 or older who underwent a government-funded health exam were unaware they had at least one of the “three highs” — high blood pressure, high blood lipids or high blood sugar, the Health Promotion Administration (HPA) said yesterday. Among adults aged 40 or older who said they did not have any of the “three highs” before taking the health exam, more than 30 percent were found to have at least one of them, Adult Preventive Health Examination Service data from 2022 showed. People with long-term medical conditions such as hypertension or diabetes usually do not
Heat advisories were in effect for nine administrative regions yesterday afternoon as warm southwesterly winds pushed temperatures above 38°C in parts of southern Taiwan, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. As of 3:30pm yesterday, Tainan’s Yujing District (玉井) had recorded the day’s highest temperature of 39.7°C, though the measurement will not be included in Taiwan’s official heat records since Yujing is an automatic rather than manually operated weather station, the CWA said. Highs recorded in other areas were 38.7°C in Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門), 38.2°C in Chiayi City and 38.1°C in Pingtung’s Sandimen Township (三地門), CWA data showed. The spell of scorching